M. Stanton Evans quotes
I’m not very familiar with M. Stanton Evans, although he’s an elder statesman of the conservative movement. One of his books, Blacklisted by History, is a revisionist account of Joe McCarthy. It’s on my list of interesting-books-I-hope-to-get-around-to-reading-someday.
But looking up Evans’ Wiki entry just now, I came across some great quotes, well worth highlighting:
“We have two parties here, and only two. One is the evil party, and the other is the stupid party. I’m very proud to be a member of the stupid party. Occasionally, the two parties get together to do something that’s both evil and stupid. That’s called bipartisanship.”[speech from 2007]
“[N]o matter how bad you think something is, when you look into it, it’s always worse.”[2010]
“Most conservatives know when they come to Washington that it is a sewer; the trouble is, too many of them wind up treating it like a hot tub.”[1989]
He sounds like a real inspiring guy/sarc.
Evans’ REVOLT ON THE CAMPUS was one of the first (at least one of the first I can remember) books in the Conservative Revival. When you see the title today you think it must have been about the New Left in the Sixties; but actually it was about conservative and libertarian college students who were shaking up the campus establishment by resisting “liberal” indoctrination and not going along with the Hive party-line.
It’s been decades since I read it, but one part I remember very fondly was Evans describing a debate between some old-line, 1950s vintage “liberal” (I think it was Max Lerner) and how befuddled he was by these young “punks” who seemed to value individual liberty. Evans describes it as the classic confrontation between rebellious youth and old fogeyism, with Lerner realizing, to his dismay, that he was the old fogey!
I enjoyed Evans’ writing in the National Review back in the day. I always felt like it was a small or as he put it, “half vast,” right wing conspiracy in those days. When Regan came along, and particularly after the Berlin Wall fell, I believed the conspiracy was well on its way to becoming vast and the majority view. Well, so much for my ability to read the tea leaves.
Glad to hear he’s still trying to convert young minds to the right wing conspiracy. I really identify with his quote: “”One of the things that happens to you when you get old, really two bad things, one of them is that you lose your hearing, and I forget what the other one is.” Keep on keepin’ on, M. Stanton Evans.
I had once, a copy of an essay written by “Stan” Evans based squarely on his book on Sen. McCarthy.
neo, bump it up (assuming it’s as informative as was the essay)!! I expect it would be well worth your while — and I’d very much love to read your “take” on it, should you choose to wax eloquent on the blog.
[Hey, maybe I should get the book too, for that matter.]
I read it a few years ago, and it is densely-packed with information that you won’t find elsewhere. Most importantly, Evans’ sources are contemporary ones from Sen. McCarthy’s days in the Senate, and a whole heckuva lot of them are primary sources–McCarthy’s speeches, the Congressional Record, transcripts from Millard Tydings and Stuart Symington, and so on. It’s McCarthy’s own words and what people were saying about him at the time, not with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. McCarthy did name names–over 100 to Sen. Tydings’ Foreign Relations subcommittee. He also made numerous tactical errors, and underestimated his opposition, so that eventually the hearings became about him instead of about communist subversion. Evans lays it all out, and makes a good case for McCarthy being right on most particulars, but also losing the plot, if you’ll excuse the bad pun. Just read the book.
Bella Dodd’s biography substantiates much of the same timeline concerning communist infiltration. They were much better at damage control than one guy named McCarthy.
Then again, the Left was better at mass deception than some recent Presidential candidates too.